LawAndOrder

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) – Another 1,965 people in eastern Kentucky could
lose their federal Social Security Disability Benefits because of disgraced Social Security attorney, Eric Conn, who made
millions by bribing Social Security Judge David Black Daugherty to approve disability cases for his
clients without holding a Hearing..
The Social Security Administration (SSA) plans to notify nearly 2,000
people in eastern Kentucky that they will have to defend their status in
court. All of them are former clients of flamboyant attorney, Eric Conn, who billed
himself as “Mr. Social Security” in television ads before his empire
crumbled beneath the weight of a federal investigation. About half of
those new cases involve Conn and a convicted former Social Security Administrative Law Judge David Daugherty.

The new cases were identified by the Social Security Office of the
Inspector General in November. U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers’ office said
notifications will go out soon, but in a piecemeal fashion instead of
all at once. People affected will have a hearing before an
administrative law judge to determine if they can keep their benefits.
People will have at least 30 days to gather evidence and hire attorneys.
Disability payments will continue throughout the redetermination
process.
These new batch of cases are in addition to the 1,800 cases
associated with Conn’s law practice the federal government has already
reviewed. Some of them have sued the government seeking to stop those Re-determination Hearings.

(Pictured above at right, Former Social Security Commissioner, Michael Astrue)
“It is heartbreaking to witness the tragic impact that Eric C. Conn’s
fraud scheme continues to have on the lives of people living in Eastern
Kentucky,” Rogers said. “While I appreciate notification from the
Social Security Administration, I question the need for additional
redetermination hearings while litigation is still pending in the
federal court system.”
Beginning in May 2015, the federal government suspended benefits for
hundreds of eastern Kentuckians associated with Attorney Conn and Judge Daugherty, prompting panic in one
of the poorest regions of the country heavily dependent on those
checks. The government eventually restored those benefits until each
person could have a hearing, but not before a few people killed
themselves in what family members said was caused by the stress of
losing their checks.
Eventually, 1,800 people had their cases reviewed and 1,500 had
redetermination hearings. Of those 1,800 initial cases, about 53 percent
kept their benefits “received favorable or partially favorable
decisions,” Hinkle said.
Those hearings took more than a year to resolve. Nearly all of the
people involved could not afford attorneys, prompting a nationwide
search for lawyers who could represent them for free. Robert Johns,
executive director of AppalRed Legal Aid, said 136 lawyers volunteered,
including 59 from Kentucky.
“We thought we were done with that,” Johns said of those initial
1,800 cases. “We’re going to likely be gearing up for the same kind of
effort to try to get these (new) folks some help.”
pleaded guilty to federal charges last year. But just before he was
supposed to be sentenced, removed his electronic monitoring bracelet and
fled. He led state and federal authorities on a chase for six months
before he was captured in December at a Pizza Hut in Honduras. He’s now
back in custody in Kentucky, where he faces more charges.Ned Pillersdorf, an eastern Kentucky attorney who has represented
several of Conn’s former clients, said he worried about the impact this
second round of notices will have on the region.
“This will hit eastern Kentucky like a nuclear bomb,” he said.
Seventy-two years ago, death fell from the sky over Japan. Two years
ago, death fell on Eastern Kentucky in the form of letters from the
Social Security Administration. Some of the deaths came by way of
suicides.
One
can hardly think of a crime a Judge could commit more egregious than
Bribery. For a Judge to use his position for personal gain is
unforgivable. For a Judge to extort bribes from the lawyers that appear
before him is a crime worthy of going to jail. Judge David Black
Daugherty is such a Judge.

He extorted bribes from
Attorney Eric Conn. Attorney Conn was found guilty of defrauding the
Social Security Administration (SSA) and the people of the United States
of about $60 Million. Judge
Daugherty’s decisions in cases in which Conn bribed him
obligated the Government to pay more than $550 million in lifetime
SSA benefits. Daugherty pleaded guilty to two counts of receiving illegal gratuities.
Daugherty
was charged along with Attorney Eric C. Conn. Conn made bribery
payments to Daugherty from October 2004 to April 2011. Conn pleaded
guilty to one count of theft of government money and one count of
payment of gratuities.
He was released on Bail, and placed under
house arrest. He was forced to wear a GPS ankle monitor while awaiting
sentencing. Sometime in June he removed the GPS
monitor and fled the country.
He was arrested on December 2nd in
Honduras and returned to the United States. A trial date for the escape
charges has been set for February 2018.
Conn was a millionaire only a few months ago. Now he is broke and behind
bars convicted of fraud and bribery. He dubbed himself “Mr. Social
Security" and collected
more than $7 million in payments for filing bogus Social Security
Disability Claims from 2004
to 2011.
Conn had been
sentenced in absentia on July 14 to 12 years in prison. He was ordered
to repay $5.7 million to the U S Government (Treasury) and $45.5
million to the Social Security Administration Trust Fund. A judge ruled that Conn violated
the terms of his Bond when he escaped to Honduras. He has been forced to forfeit the
property put up for his Bail. That includes his Floyd County law
complex, valued at $659,100.
The
astonishing variety of social media postings and nonstop chatter about
The Conn and Daugherty Cases have revealed a level of satire that has
produced no shortage of laughter.
This humorous interlude is in sharp contrast to the gloom that has
descended over the Kentucky mountains. For more than two years the dark
clouds
caused by Conn and his colorful array of conspirators has stubbornly
hung over the most poverty-stricken region in America.
Now
that the laughter is dying down, some sobering facts are emerging. Almost a thousand of
Conn's former clients have lost their Social Security Benefits. They have also lost
their health insurance and are receiving ominous letters from the Social
Security Administration demanding those who struggled to exist on
$800 per month they must pay back amounts often in excess of $100,000. There have been
confirmed suicides. How many? We may never know the true number for sure.
Kentucky feels a lot like Hiroshima and Nagasaki.We did not see it coming.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Marshall motorcyclist dies after crash on Sunday

Gregory Dean Bodoh,
a Marshall resident, died Monday 22 January as a result of a traffic
accident on Sunday 21 January on John Marshall Highway east of The
Plains, Virginia.

A Ford F-150 on Sunday, Jan. 21, turned left from Route 600 and
westbound onto John Marshall Highway (Route 55) before it struck a 2013
Harley Davidson motorcycle in the eastbound lane.

The driver of the motorcycle was Gregory Dean Bodoh, 71 years old. He was flown to INOVA
Fairfax Hospital, where he died early Monday morning, state police Sgt.
Les Tyler said.

David P. Prause, 39, who lives near Broad Run, drove the Ford pickup.

“It’s still under investigation,” Sgt. Tyler said of the accident. “No charges have been currently placed.”

A 71-year-old Marshall man died Monday following a motorcycle crash on Va. 55.
The collision happened about 5:50 p.m. Sunday just south of Interstate 66.

Gregory
David Bodoh, 71, of Marshall, was traveling east on 55 on a 2013 Harley
Davidson when a westbound 2005 Ford F150 made a left turn in front of
him, said state police Sgt. Les Tyler.
Bodoh was flown by helicopter to Inova Fairfax Hopsital where he died of his injuries about 1 a.m. Monday, Tyler said.

The truck’s driver, David P. Prause of Broad Run, has not been charged.
The crash remains under investigation.

A Ford F-150 on Sunday, Jan. 21, turned left from Route 600 and
westbound onto John Marshall Highway (Route 55) before it struck a 2013
Harley Davidson motorcycle in the eastbound lane.

The driver of the motorcycle, Gregory Dean Bodoh, 71, got flown to INOVA
Fairfax Hospital, where he died early Monday morning, state police Sgt.
Les Tyler said.

David P. Prause, 39, who lives near Broad Run, drove the Ford pickup.

“It’s still under investigation,” Sgt. Tyler said of the accident. “No charges have been currently placed.”

A 71-year-old Marshall man died Monday following a motorcycle crash on Va. 55.
The collision happened about 5:50 p.m. Sunday just south of Interstate 66.

Gregory
David Bodoh, 71, of Marshall, was traveling east on 55 on a 2013 Harley
Davidson when a westbound 2005 Ford F150 made a left turn in front of
him, said state police Sgt. Les Tyler.
Bodoh was flown by helicopter to Inova Fairfax Hopsital where he died of his injuries about 1 a.m. Monday, Tyler said.

The truck’s driver, David P. Prause of Broad Run, has not been charged.
The crash remains under investigation.

On the surface, Daryl Bank looks like a local businessman who has made it big.
His
face is on the cover of books offering financial advice. His voice was
broadcast on radio stations here and in more than two dozen other
markets around the country.
His Virginia Beach-based company,
Dominion Investment Group, has 10 offices in seven states and offers a
"full range of financial services" with a network of more than 200
independent consultants, according to its website.
But
Bank, a 1988 graduate of Chesapeake's Indian River High School, has
been sanctioned by federal regulators, and his business is facing
serious allegations in Virginia and Arizona.
In 2010, he was
permanently banned from registering as a broker in the U.S., and his
longtime business partner, Roger Hudspeth, a 1986 graduate of
Portsmouth's Churchland High, was fined $5,000 and suspended for 30
days.
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil
complaint in April against Bank and others in Arizona, alleging they
illegally took millions of dollars from clients.
On July 27, Bank
was arrested in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Police say he pointed a gun at a
woman who was trying to serve him with civil court papers.
And
Thursday, at a State Corporation Commission hearing in Richmond,
regulators could decide whether to temporarily stop Bank and several
associates from operating in Virginia while investigators continue to
look into allegations of fraud.
Despite the civil sanctions, Bank
and Hudspeth have been pitching their services and selling illegal
products, federal and state securities regulators say.
Bank's
radio show, "Daryl & the Bull," aired Saturday afternoons on AM 1650
in Hampton Roads until mid-July, when the station pulled the program
after being contacted by The Pilot.
Until recently, Hudspeth
hosted free seminars for seniors about maximizing their Social Security
benefits. And the company's YouTube channel - flush with recordings on
topics from tax preparation to investing in diamonds - was updated as
recently as July 31.
Two elderly Hampton Roads women told The
Pilot they each have invested more than $100,000 with Dominion
Investment Group. They spoke to The Pilot on the condition that their
full names would not be used.
Barbara, a 77-year-old from
Chesapeake, said she had worked with Hudspeth for a decade. She said she
lost at least $50,000 when one company ran out of money, and she's been
told by a Dominion employee she can't immediately access $25,000
invested in another company.
Ann, an 86-year-old from Hampton,
said Bank was like a member of the family. She said she had no reason to
believe her money was in jeopardy until the FBI came to her home to ask
about the investments.
Afterward, she tried to pull her money out
of a company, but she said Dominion told her it had to find another
investor to buy her out.
Bank, 45, did not return calls seeking
comment for this story. Hudspeth, 46, declined requests for an interview
but confirmed Friday he no longer works for Dominion Investment Group.
He recently had been listed as a partner on the firm's website.
Tom
Sporkin, an attorney with Buckley Sandler LLP in Washington, who is
representing Bank and several of his companies in the Arizona case,
declined to discuss the allegations against his client: "I look forward
to vigorously defending Mr. Bank and the Dominion entities in court."
It
was not immediately clear whether Bank retained an attorney in Florida
after his recent arrest. He posted a $20,000 bond and was released,
according to a spokesman for the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office.
Bank
was charged with two felonies: aggravated assault with a deadly weapon
and assault on an elderly person. Police allege he pointed a gun at a
69-year-old woman who was trying to serve him papers at his home. The
documents were related to a suit brought against Bank and his wife,
Catrina Davis, by Prudential Insurance Co., according to an arrest
affidavit.
Ann, the Hampton woman, and her daughter, Lanette, sat
in stunned silence in Ann's living room when The Pilot told them about
Bank's arrest and his previous problems with regulators. He used to sit
down with them once a year in that same room to go over Ann's portfolio.
"I
find it hard to believe, even now," Lanette said. "Because he's like
your best friend. He's like a part of the family when he comes over and
he's chit-chatting and he's talking."
___It's not clear
when Bank and Hudspeth first met, but they were political science
majors at Old Dominion University around the same time. Hudspeth earned
his bachelor's degree in 1990; Bank graduated in 1993.
Bank first
registered as an "investment adviser representative" and broker with UBS
Financial Services Inc. in Virginia Beach in 1996, according to federal
databases. Hudspeth registered with Next Financial Group Inc. as a
broker in 2003 and as an investment adviser in Chesapeake in 2004.
From
2005 on, they were affiliated with the same firms, according to the
Securities and Exchange Commission, the government agency that registers
investment advisers, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority,
which oversees brokers. (FINRA is an independent, nonprofit organization
that enforces federal securities laws, but it is not an arm of the
government.)
Licensed brokers are allowed to sell stocks, bonds
and mutual funds. Investment advisers don't sell securities but can
recommend financial products to clients.
In 2003, Bank formed
Dominion Investment Group as an arm of Resource Bank, according to an
undated essay on the company's website. It went independent a few years
later as the economy crashed.
Bank and Hudspeth, the only employees at that point, were selling fixed annuities and insurance in Virginia Beach.
The
essay says about Bank: "Inspired by his dynamic history of overcoming
obstacles and taking risks that ultimately paid off, his mindset about
his business during this economically challenging time was exactly the
opposite from most businesses and financial firms. While everyone else
was preparing for the worst and scaling back, he had one thing on his
mind: expansion!"
Bank's and Hudspeth's troubles with federal authorities started in 2008, when FINRA filings accused both of misconduct.
Investigators
alleged that Bank and a business partner, Gregory Bodoh,
misappropriated $160,000 in commissions that belonged to the now-defunct
Bank of the Commonwealth and its subsidiary, Commonwealth Financial
Advisors LLC.
Bank was employed by Bank of the Commonwealth from
2005 to 2008 - separately from his work with Dominion Investment Group.
According to FINRA, he funneled money to Bodoh through an arrangement
with Commonwealth Financial Advisors; Bodoh then transferred the money
to a company owned by Bank, who kept most of it but returned some to
Bodoh.
Around the same time, FINRA accused Hudspeth of selling
shares of real estate investment trusts to clients in 2007 and 2008
without having the proper license.
Bank, Bodoh and Hudspeth
settled with FINRA in February 2010. None admitted guilt, but Bank and
Bodoh were permanently banned from the authority, meaning they could no
longer register as brokers or work for firms registered with it.
Bank
gave up his license and was "discharged" by the company he was
registered with, Capitol Securities Management, according to FINRA's
broker database. Hudspeth was fined $5,000 and suspended for 30 days.
"Barring
an individual from the industry... is the strongest sanction FINRA can
assess," George Smaragdis, a spokesman for the authority, said in an
email to The Pilot. "While FINRA does not have the authority to bring
criminal charges against an individual or firm, FINRA can and does
actively refer hundreds of matters to the relevant authorities every
year."
Smaragdis said FINRA can't confirm whether information about particular cases was forwarded to law enforcement officers.
___Bank moved
from Virginia to Port St. Lucie after being barred by FINRA, according
to an affidavit from the lead investigator of the Virginia State
Corporation Commission's Division of Securities and Retail Franchising.
The date was not specified.Soon after
the FINRA settlements, Bank began expanding his public profile and
building a web of limited liability companies under the umbrella of
Dominion Investment Group. The operations in Virginia and Florida
expanded to offices in Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Nevada and
Pennsylvania.
Bank's radio show is broadcast in 15 states,
according to the company website. Each show lasts 45 minutes to an hour,
covering topics such as annuities, taxes, identity theft and college
planning. Recent segments are called "Daryl & the Bull: Putting Your
Financial House in Order," featuring Bank and Bradley Sperling, a
Dominion employee, as "The Bull."
Colleen Dick, station manager
for Chesapeake-Portsmouth Broadcasting, the company that programs AM
1650 WHKT in Hampton Roads, said she was unaware of Bank's history with
FINRA or the recent civil complaints filed against him in Arizona and
Virginia.
The company paid WHKT to broadcast its show, Dick said.
Often, the commercials played between segments were advertisements for
Dominion.
"Attention, savers. Here's your chance to create up to
30 percent or more in cash flow," one commercial said in January 2014.
"Your $25,000 may create $10,000 or more of annual earnings. In these
times, we understand it's hard to make 4 percent, no less up to 30
percent, but there is an opportunity that exists that's proven itself
over the last nine years."
The narrator didn't identify the opportunity.
WHKT
took the show off the air early in July, the same week The Pilot called
to ask about it, Dick said. "Daryl & the Bull" was under a
year-long contract that started in October.
"We want to make sure
our listeners are not caught in the middle of anything, so that was
certainly part of it," Henry Hoot, regional vice president for
Chesapeake-Portsmouth Broadcasting, said when asked whether Bank's FINRA
ban contributed to the decision.
Bank also was a contributor to
two recent books published by Celebrity Press: "SuccessOnomics: Learn
The Secrets Of Success In The New Economy From Today's Leading
Entrepreneurs and Professionals" and "Get in the Game: The World's
Leading Entrepreneurs & Professionals Reveal How YOU Can Get Off the
Sideline and Start Improving Your Health, Wealth & Lifestyle."
In
both, Bank was one of dozens of contributors. J.W. Dicks, co-owner of
Celebrity Press, said his company Google searches all of its authors
before allowing them to be published, but Bank's history with FINRA did
not come to light.
"Obviously, you've brought concerns to me, particularly about the search," Dicks said. "You don't know what you don't know."
Bank paid $7,164 to be published in "SuccessOnomics" and $8,700 to be included in "Get in the Game," Dicks said.
For
an extra fee, the company prints individualized book covers with a
photo of the contributor on the front. Bank has his own "SuccessOnomics"
cover, and he hand-delivered a signed copy to Ann, the elderly client
in Hampton. Bank had been managing her family's money since the late
1990s, when she and her late husband met him at a seminar he hosted on
investing.
His chapter in the book - titled "One Day I'll
Succeed!" - recounts his experiences with Bank of the Commonwealth. He
said he and his partners anonymously reported "rampant fraud and
deception" to regulators and law enforcement, and then the bank's
president and CEO "spun a web of criminal accusations" against him.
"For
the first time in my life, I couldn't sleep," Bank wrote. "When I did
sleep, I awoke in a cold sweat with wild visions of the FBI breaking in
the door to my home or barging into my office and leading me away in
handcuffs."
He wrote that he was innocent, but "no one wants the FBI looking at you; this is not a good feeling."
___In April,
the SEC filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Arizona against
Bank and five other men, alleging they participated in a scheme to bilk
millions from investors through the sale of "cellular spectrum
licenses."
The complaint says the plan was orchestrated by David
Alcorn and Kent Maerki, both of Arizona, and a company they formed
called Janus Spectrum LLC. Bank and three others allegedly acted as
fundraisers by selling interests in a particular band of the wireless
spectrum they claimed would be sought by Sprint and other major
cellphone carriers.
In reality, the Federal Communications
Commission had limited the use of that band to protect public safety
airwaves, according to the complaint. It was mostly used by local law
enforcement officers and small businesses like pizza delivery companies.
A
Sprint representative told Alcorn in 2010 - two years before the first
securities offerings - that the company wouldn't be able to use the
spectrum he applied for because of federal restrictions, according to
the SEC. Alcorn was told again in 2011.
Documents say the group of
six men and 12 companies raised $12.4 million from 2012 to 2014, with
Bank bringing in much more than the others. Using several Virginia
Beach-based companies, Bank allegedly raised $8.2 million from 111
investors across the country - an average of about $74,000 per person.

Of that, he transferred $4.5 million to his personal and business accounts without the knowledge of his investors, the SEC said.
An SEC spokeswoman declined to comment on the case.
In
a response to the complaint, Bank and several of his companies denied
some of the allegations and claimed others were ambiguous or irrelevant.
They asked the court to dismiss the case.
A hearing has been set for Nov. 5 in Phoenix.
___In 2012,
officials with the Virginia State Corporation Commission requested
documents from Hudspeth for a routine audit. Hudspeth signed a letter
claiming neither he nor the affiliate he was managing, Norfolk-based
Dominion Investment Advisors LLC, was selling securities.
When a
client complained to the SCC's securities division in 2014, an auditor
asked to examine the company's records. Hudspeth again denied having
sold securities, the documents said.
The division claims that
Hudspeth lied to officials both times and that he and his firm
unlawfully offered and sold unregistered securities for at least three
companies.
In one case, Hudspeth and his company allegedly told
clients the business he was selling stakes in was a "hands-free" and
"proven" franchise chain called Dental Support Plus, run by Maerki of
Arizona. But no stores ever opened, officials claim.
Barbara, the
Chesapeake woman interviewed by The Pilot, said she invested $110,000 in
2004 with Hudspeth after she sold her home. When the market crashed a
few years later, the woman told Hudspeth she wanted out of stocks, so he
suggested other investments.
She does not remember talking about
commissions, fees or costs with Hudspeth, according to a questionnaire
she filled out for the SEC's division of enforcement, which she provided
to The Pilot.
"I trusted him entirely," she wrote to the SEC. "He never discussed risks (only the profits) associated with my investments."
Hudspeth
gave her a stack of thorough documents outlining Dental Support Plus
before she signed. After she agreed to invest, she received several
binders of legal documents and newsletters, "which made the investment
look more legit and legal," she wrote.
She bought three franchise
units for $25,000 each, which was what she had left after leaving the
stock market. She expected to earn roughly $6,240 a year - but she told
the SEC she received just one dividend check for $99 between 2011 and
2015.
"I recall saying to him more than once, 'Treat me as if I
were your grandmother. Don't put me in anything that you wouldn't put
her in,' " she wrote.
When the woman became concerned about her
money, she asked to liquidate her account, but she said Hudspeth told
her he would first have to find another investor to buy her interests.
He eventually found a buyer for one unit, which left her with two shares
worth $50,000.
In August 2014, she received a letter explaining that Dental Support had run out of money and would stop operating.
Hudspeth
suggested she invest the $25,000 she recovered from Dental Support in
two other limited liability companies, she said. She agreed, but has
since been told by a Dominion associate that the company has to find
another buyer before getting her money back.
"The final straw was
when I was having an emotional conversation with Roger," she wrote to
the SEC. "Almost in tears, I said to him, 'Before I get my money from
this investment (Dental Support Plus), at my age, I might not be around
to recover my loss.' His response was, 'Then you won't have to worry
about it.' "
Upset,
she said she spoke to Bank about Hudspeth's comments and about her
failed investments - but he didn't offer her solutions.
"Why would you commit a 74-year-old (then), 77-year-old (now) to this type of investment?" she wrote.
Hudspeth's
attorney, Richmond-based Melissa Ann Conner, filed a response in April
rebutting the claims made by the securities division of the State
Corporation Commission: None of the investors who bought interests in
Hudspeth's ventures were technically "investment advisor" clients, and
they all presumably understood the disclosures they signed, and
therefore they knew they risked losing money.
The products also were exempt from registration requirements, Conner wrote.
The
securities division asked the SCC in February to revoke the investment
adviser licenses of Hudspeth and the company. It is seeking restitution
to investors, civil penalties and an injunction barring them from the
securities business in Virginia.
The division subpoenaed files
relating to Hudspeth months ago, but just one document had been
submitted as of last week. A "hearing examiner," who acts as a judge,
set a new deadline of Aug. 24 for the records to be filed.
The
state has also requested a temporary injunction against Bank and four of
his employees, "given the scope of the interrelated entities and
breadth of the defendants' potential violations of the act," according
to documents filed by Virginia's securities division in June. About
three dozen copies of the original injunction request were refused when
the commission attempted to deliver them to Dominion's offices in
Virginia Beach, according to documents filed in late July.
The SCC will hold a hearing to discuss the injunction request on Thursday in Richmond.
Through
Dental Support and other companies, Bank and his affiliates raised at
least $3.1 million from 75 Virginia investors, the filing said. They
also sold securities without the licenses they're required to have.
Still, the investigation isn't over.
"The
division is concerned that... the defendants will continue to offer and
sell the securities in violation of the act or transfer its sales
operations to other affiliated companies," the filing said.
Within
two weeks of the state's injunction request, Ann, Bank's client in
Hampton, was sent four nearly identical and unsigned letters from each
of the limited liability companies she had invested in through Dominion
Investment: PLI Management LLC, DV8 Group Management LLC, WeMonitor
Management LLC and Warped Cigar Management LLC.
"Due to taxes,
efficiency, and the desire to keep costs down, we have decided to move
the location" of three of the companies from Virginia to Florida, the
letters said; Warped Cigar had moved to Nevada.
"This does not affect you or your ownership rights in anyway in the new location," the four letters said.
After
Ann's husband died in 2002, at least $250,000 - nearly half of her nest
egg - shifted from traditional securities like stocks and mutual funds
to limited liability companies recommended by Bank, according to
Lanette, the woman's daughter, who lives in Suffolk.
A couple of
hundred dollars in quarterly dividends rolled in for years, but within
the past couple of years, Ann stopped receiving statements in the mail.
She
says the FBI visited her home last winter to ask about her investments
in PLI Management. Her daughter called Bank after the investigator left
to ask why the FBI had been to her mother's house. Bank, she said,
pointed the finger at a former employee, but reassured her that her
mother's money was safe.
Earlier this summer, Ann and Lanette
asked Bank's associate to liquidate the funds in PLI because they still
worried about the FBI involvement. The funds weren't liquidated,
according to Lanette.
When she asked for an explanation, she was
told by the associate that Bank needed to find a new buyer for a "cross
trade" but that he had "good news on one of the other holdings that he
would like to discuss," according to an email provided to The Pilot.
A
response to the state filed July 21 by Billy Seabolt, a Williamsburg
attorney with Family Wealth Law Group, who is representing Bank and the
other defendants, accuses the securities division of filing "aggressive
motions" before conducting a full investigation. Seabolt asked the
commission to strike down the injunction request.
The defendants have cooperated by providing paperwork when the state has requested it, Seabolt wrote:
"These
actions are not the actions of people who are seeking to break the law.
Though in today's overly regulated society, there might be some
'gotcha' issues by which a governmental entity can lay claim to."
Seabolt said investors were warned that they may face "total loss" when buying Dominion's "alternative products."
"Some clients have lost money but so have people who invested in juno.com, etoys.com, pets.com, altavista.com, Circuit City, K-mart, Sears... " he wrote.
___Earlier this summer, a group of Florida residents received a postcard inviting them to a seminar called "Social Security Maximization."
The
meeting was at a community college north of Port St. Lucie. It was
hosted by Hudspeth, whose LinkedIn page touts his "fiduciary standard"
as one of his strengths: "by law, advice must be in client's best
interest."
A Pilot reporter pre-registered for the class, but
Hudspeth called the afternoon of the event and asked her not to attend.
He said she was too young to benefit from the information, and that he
had a waiting list of seniors who wanted to attend, so he needed her
seat.
"I have nothing to hide," he said, but declined to meet in person that day or in the future.
At
the event, an associate of Hudspeth's told the reporter to leave, then
shut the door. Before it closed, the reporter saw about a dozen people
in the room and empty seats at every table.
After the meeting, one
of the attendees, George Durr, 80, said he didn't feel pressured by
Hudspeth to buy financial products or transfer his money to Dominion
Investment Group. He was given an opportunity to provide personal
information, and he expected Dominion to contact him.
Several former Dominion Investment Group employees declined to be interviewed for this story.
Irv
Segal, who runs a company called Easy Land Deals in Scottsdale, Ariz.,
tried to set up a Dominion Investment Group office there in 2014. He
said Hudspeth taught him how to host Social Security seminars. The
venture didn't work out, so Segal abandoned plans for the branch.
"I
was trying to generate leads and Roger was going to be the key person
for talking to them about investments for retirement kind of stuff,"
Segal said. "I was trying to line people up for a review of their Social
Security situation.... If they were interested, then Dominion could
handle their investments for them."
Segal said he knew Bank and
Hudspeth through his work as a franchisee of the Dental Support Plus
venture a few years earlier. He said Hudspeth was a straight-shooter
with a more low-key style than Bank.
"He has charisma," Segal said of Bank. "You just can't stop listening to him talk."
On
his radio show, Bank's lilting Southern accent sometimes lapses into a
no-nonsense, rapid-fire delivery. In a January 2014 episode about scams
on the elderly, Bank recounted a call from a person he thought was
trying to swindle him:
"I played with him for five or 10 minutes,
but I abused him in a way that my wife had to have a talk with me
afterwards. But I gave him an abuse that I felt like he had earned...
because all I could think of is, had he called my grandparents or some
other senior in this community... he would have taken advantage of
people.
"It just absolutely inflamed me."
Ann said that when
she first dealt with Bank, he would show her pictures of his new wife,
his dog and eventually his two children, whose names she scrawled in her
address book. He'd ask about her family. His voice became so familiar
she recognized it immediately when he called.
One constant topic,
she remembered, was his grandparents. Bank liked to talk about his close
ties to them, especially when he was pitching a new investment. Over
and over, she heard him say, "I would never put you in anything that I
wouldn't put my grandparents in."

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Feds say Social Security rep scammed thousands from clients. Then he shot a selfie.

Oliver Montgomery was a Clerk at
the Social Security Office. His job was to help clients get their
Social Security payments. Instead, he stole them, more than $37,000 in
all. He has been charged
with theft of government money and aggravated identity theft.

He allegedly committed
the crimes while on the job. He worked in a local office of the Social Security
Administration (SSA).
Social Security fraud is
a billion dollar industry – from false claims and continuing to collect
payments after someone has died to forged Social Security cards and
stolen numbers.

Montgomery’s scheme
covered a 12-month period, during which he allegedly
diverted tens of thousands of dollars from two Social Security
beneficiaries.

After threatening an
ex-girlfriend who planned to take him to court over a previous debt,
Montgomery shot her a text message with a selfie he’d taken at the
Social Security office. In the photograph, Montgomery posed with a large
amount of cash.
“Show them that stack on my desk,” he told the former girlfriend in the text.

Instead, she eventually shared the text with federal investigators.
In one case, Montgomery diverted more than $12,000 in back
payments due to an unidentified woman. He first fraudulently requested
that the woman’s suspended Social Security benefits be reinstated, then
went into her electronic file to change the listed mailing address and
bank account.

While interviewing
Montgomery’s co-workers about that case, investigators uncovered another
questionable transaction, involving Montgomery’s interactions
with the records of a one-time prison inmate.

The man’s Social
Security benefits had been suspended while he served his sentence. He was released in January 2017.

Montgomery hacked into the man’s account to show that he had been freed two years
earlier – making the ex-prisoner eligible for a $27,000 back payment in
Social Security benefits.
According to the
affidavit, Montgomery enlisted an old high school friend to help him
forge the necessary documents and reroute the money.

The friend received $2,000 and
Montgomery got the rest. He is scheduled to appear in federal court.(Based on an article by Gordon, M. and David, M)

Thursday, January 18, 2018

President Trump
regularly rails against the San Francisco-headquartered 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals, yet he has not taken an opportunity reshape the
nation’s largest and arguably most liberal appeals court. Both the
court’s supporters and detractors are wondering when he will.

There are five vacancies now on the 9th Circuit — which Trump most recently called “broken and unfair”
— and two more are coming in the next eight months. That means Trump
could significantly influence the West Coast judiciary by nominating the
type of young, ideologically conservative judges he has tapped for
other courts.
“Trump is going to have an enormous effect on the 9th Circuit,” said Erwin Chemerinsky,
dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. “Trump right now can fill about
20 percent of the seats on the court, and he still has at least three
years left in his term. He could dramatically alter the composition of
the court.
Chemerinsky said the
stakes are “huge” in part because of the 9th Circuit’s size and large
caseload. Nearly one fifth of the U.S. population lives in the nine
western states spanned by the 9th Circuit, ranging from liberal
California, Oregon and Washington to conservative Arizona, Idaho and
Alaska.

While the 9th Circuit has a reputation of having its decisions overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court — which happened 88 percent of the time
during the court’s 2016 term — the Supreme Court reviewed just eight of
the 9th Circuit’s 6,554 rulings that year. That means that, love them
or hate them, the vast majority of court’s decisions become the law of
the land.
So why hasn’t Trump moved faster on the 9th Circuit?

Trump is going to have an enormous effect on the 9th Circuit Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law

One reason is his
judicial attentions have been poised elsewhere. The White House and
Senate moved quickly last year to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court nominee,
Neil Gorsuch. The Senate then confirmed 12 of Trump’s nominees to U.S.
appeals courts by the end of 2017, a record for a president’s first year in office. By contrast, President Obama was only able to get three appeals court judges confirmed during his inaugural year.
In nominating those 12
appeals court judges, the White House tended to focus on states that
Trump won during the 2016 election, and also those represented by key
GOP senators. Trump’s first two appeals court nominations involved
Kentucky judges on the 6th Circuit, of special interest to Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Most of the remainder involve appeals
courts in the Midwest and South.
The Senate “blue-slip”
tradition may be another factor. The “blue slip” refers to a gentleman’s
agreement, not a hard rule, that allows a U.S. senator to reject
judicial nominees for their home state by refusing to return a positive
blue slip to the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman.
If this tradition is
honored, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other west-coast Democrats will have
leverage over Trump nominations in their states. But conservative groups
are pressuring Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley to abandon
that tradition, and Grassley has indicated he may not honor blue-slip
objections in all situations.
A test case is coming
up. Last year, Trump nominated a 44-year-old federal prosecutor from
Oregon, Ryan Bounds, to an open seat on the 9th Circuit. Like many of
Trump’s judicial nominees, Bounds is a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative group that Trump once stated would be the selector of all of his judicial nominees.
Oregon’s two U.S. senators, both Democrats, objected to Bounds’ nomination,
stalling the confirmation. This month, Trump renominated Bounds to the
seat, and Grassley is declining to say if his confirmation process will
advance. “Sen. Grassley has not made any statements on this particular
nominee,” said Taylor Foy, a spokesman for the judiciary chairman.
Feinstein insists that
Grassley consult with Oregon’s senators. “If a nominee doesn’t receive
[favorable] blue slips from both home-state senators, the committee
shouldn’t move forward,” Feinstein said in a statement to McClatchy.
For its part, the White
House declined to comment on its approach to the 9th Circuit, saying
only that “we are working with and extensively consult all Senators,
from both parties, throughout the nomination process.”
If Grassley abandons the
blue-slip process, it would eliminate the incentive for Trump to
consult with Democrats and could change the 9th Circuit for decades to
come, said Barry McDonald, a law professor at Pepperdine University in California.
“He and his advisers
have stated they are looking to appoint young, ideologically
conservative judges, so they will be on the bench for a number of
years,” said McDonald. “The more judges he’s able to appoint, the more
of the mark they are going to leave on the law.”
Yet McDonald, who once
clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, said
abandonment of bipartisan consultation will only add to partisan divides
in the judicial system, resulting in more judges on the political
fringes. “The blue slip plays a moderating role.”
Eliminating the blue
slip process would also inflame already tense relations between
Feinstein and Grassley, and Feinstein and Trump.
Through much of last
year, the White House was cautious in dealing with Feinstein, who is
both a ranking member of Judiciary and a member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, giving her sway over
the Senate’s Russia investigations. But Trump recently referred to
Feinstein as “Sneaky Diane” in a tweet, after she used her Judicial
Committee seniority to release testimony from the founder of the firm behind the infamous Trump dossier.
Controversy over blue
slips flares in nearly every administration, depending on who is in
power. When Obama was president, Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, a
Democrat from Vermont, honored the blue slip tradition, and Republicans
used it to block many of Obama’s nominees, including those to the 9th
Circuit. That obstruction prompted a 2014 New York Times editorial
urging Leahy to abandon the blue slip.
With Trump in power, conservative groups are running ads denouncing Democrats who use their blue slips to block the president’s nominees.
Over the last two months, Feinstein and Grassley have engaged in dueling op-eds over the issue. Grassley argues that
defenders of the blue-slip tradition overstate how consistently it has
been honored in the Senate over the decades. Feinstein notes that Grassley used the blue slip to block nine of Obama’s nominees in 2015 and 2016.
Partly because of its regional location, the 9th Circuit has decided important cases over the years involving the environment, same-sex marriage and civil rights. Despite its liberal reputation — Rush Limbaugh once called it “the 9th Circus“
— most experts say the appeals court has moderated in recent years, in
part because of the retirement of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton
appointees.
Still, the 9th Circuit and its three-judge panels have struck down two of Trump’s travel bans, and also blocked a Trump order
to withhold funding from so-called sanctuary cities. That April ruling
prompted former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to tell
reporters, “It’s the 9th Circuit going bananas.”
The full 9th Circuit is
authorized to have 29 judgeships. When Trump came to office, there were
four openings, which became five in December when Alex Kosinski, a
libertarian who regularly sided with the liberal majority, announced his retirement amid allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior.
Of the 24 judges now sitting,
18 were appointed by Democrats, and six were appointed by George W.
Bush, a Republican. If Trump is able to get all of appointees confirmed
this year, that split will shrink to 17-12. Conceivably, Republican
appointees could exceed Democratic appointees by the time Trump leaves
office.
Since the 9th Circuit
operates with randomly assigned, three-judge panels, Trump’s nominees
could issue much different rulings than the ones that now dog him, said Kevin R. Johnson,
an immigration expert and dean of the UC Davis School of Law. “With
more conservatives in the pool, you are more likely to have more
conservatives on the panels,” he said.
Johnson said he expects
the White House to appoint some “highly qualified people” but ones with a
far more right-leaning ideology than many of their 9th Circuit
predecessors.
“Trump will move the court to the right,” Johnson said. “Possibly quite a way.”

Judge
Alex Kozinski testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, March
16, 2017, at a House Justice Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual
Property and the Internet hearing on restructuring the Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals. Kozinski recently announced his retirement from the
Ninth Circuit, amid sexual harassment allegations, creating a fifth
opening on the court and an opportunity for President Trump to reshape
the court.

Federal court in California to study workplace conditions after judge is accused of sexual misconduct

Saturday January 13, 2018 12:47 PM

By Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court has assigned a committee to
investigate workplace conditions after of sexual misconduct accusations
that forced a high-profile judge to retire.
Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals named four judges and an employment lawyer to the committee,
which will review policies to protect workers and recommend changes if
necessary.

Thomas said he created the committee Dec. 17. The
day before, 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski announced his retirement
after former clerks, externs and others in the legal profession accused
Kozinski of sexual misconduct.

Thomas did not mention
Kozinski by name in announcing the committee, but noted there were rules
in place to deal with complaints against federal judges.

“We
do have many effective procedures in place to avoid problems in the
workplace,” he said in a news release. “But we need to re-examine them,
develop better means of communication, and assure our law clerks and
staff of a healthy and productive workplace.”

(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

Ninth
Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown will head the committee. The other
members named Friday were district Judges Virginia A. Phillips of Los
Angeles, Charles R. Breyer of San Francisco and Candy W. Dale of Idaho,
and San Diego attorney Abby Silverman, an expert in employment law.

(END OPTIONAL TRIM)

The
women who complained about Kozinski included one of his former law
clerks, who said confidentiality rules in the judges’ chambers made it
impossible for her and other law clerks to seek redress.

The
women accused him of a variety of improprieties, including showing them
pornographic images and groping, in blog posts and to the Washington
Post.
more here: http://www.modbee.com/news/politics-government/article194489364.html#storylink=cpy

CNN Investigation: Sexual misconduct by judges kept under wraps

(CNN)One
morning in 1998, US District Court Judge Walter Smith called a deputy
clerk into his chambers in the Waco, Texas, courthouse and closed the
door behind her.

"He
basically came over to me and put his arms around me and kissed me, and
I just froze. I couldn't move," the woman said in a deposition. "And he
said, 'Let me make love to you.' And I just freaked out. ... And then
he pulled me to him again, and he kissed me again and stuck his tongue
down my throat, and he pressed himself against me. ... And then he
started to try touch my breasts, and I kind of pushed away and said ...
'I need to go.'"

The next day, Smith sent her a dozen yellow roses.

In
recent months, powerful men in Hollywood, the media, Congress and other
spheres have been accused of sexual harassment. A common theme has been
men abusing their positions in settings where women feel they have no
recourse.

The abuse women have
suffered in the nation's courthouses has been a largely untold story.
And its system for complaints -- where judges police fellow judges -- is
a world so closely controlled and cloaked in secrecy that it defies
public scrutiny.

Rarely
do sexual misconduct allegations against federal judges become public,
even belatedly, as in the Waco episode or as they did in late 2017, with
myriad complaints against California-based US Appeals Court Judge Alex
Kozinski that drew national attention in the current #MeToo moment, forcing his resignation.

The
federal judiciary occupies a distinct place in American life that makes
what happens there potentially more striking than in other spheres. The
nearly 900 federal judges who sit on trial and appellate courts are
appointed for life. They have the authority to interpret the law on
sex-based offenses. Their attitudes about harassment could reverberate
in legal disputes that arise in other realms.

But the judiciary itself is hiding the depth of the problem of misconduct by judges.

CNN
compiled and reviewed nearly 5,000 judicial orders related to
misconduct complaints and available online over the past 10 years. The
documents, covering an array of misbehavior beyond sexual misconduct,
are remarkably short on details.

The CNN analysis found that:

Very
few cases against judges are deeply investigated, and very few judges
are disciplined in any way. In many years, not a single judge is
sanctioned.

None of the actual complaints (more than 1,000 are
filed annually) are made public. In the public judicial orders, claims
are sparingly summarized, and accused judges' names rarely appear. Some
orders refer to "corrective action" by a judge without saying what
happened.

Judicial orders are dumped onto circuit court websites
as a series of numbered files with no indication of the allegations,
person complaining or outcome. The practice makes it even more difficult
to identify the most serious misconduct cases hidden among the opaque
lists of documents because each order must be opened and individually
read to gain even minimal information about the nature of the complaint.

In
the 12-month period that ended September 30, 2016, there were 1,303
complaints filed. Of those, only four were referred to a special
committee for the most serious level of investigation, according to the
Administrative Office of the US Courts. In 2015, of the 1,214
complaints, four went to a special committee.

Going
back to 2006, fewer than 10 cases annually were deeply investigated and
even fewer resulted in disciplinary action. In six of the past 11
years, not a single judge was reprimanded, suspended or otherwise
sanctioned for misconduct.

In some cases, judges simply retire -- and receive their full pension.

And
then he pulled me to him again, and he kissed me again and stuck his
tongue down my throat, and he pressed himself against me.

Woman in deposition describing assault by Judge Walter Smith

After
Smith cornered the clerk in Waco, she told supervisors and word
eventually made it to a regional boss who was, in the woman's telling,
upset about the incident and wanted to stop her from outright quitting.
That supervisor reached out to District Court Chief Judge Harry Lee
Hudspeth. According to the woman, Hudspeth called her and said, "What do
you want me to do about it? What exactly do you want me to do about
this?"

Hudspeth told CNN he did
not believe his reaction had been so "harsh" but would have told the
woman he had no responsibility in the matter. Smith declined to comment.
The woman left her job soon after the incident.

US District Judge Walter Smith outside the federal courthouse in 1994 in San Antonio.

Sixteen
years later, the case resurfaced when a lawyer who clashed with Smith
in a separate matter unrelated to sexual misconduct was tipped off by a
court employee about the 1998 episode. After he filed a complaint
against Smith, a judicial council investigated the woman's story. It
verified the harassment, ordered "sensitivity training" and temporarily
blocked new cases from being assigned to Smith. The lawyer was not
satisfied with either the scope of the investigation or the penalty, so
he appealed and a second investigation was launched. Smith retired
before it finished and eluded further discipline.

Overall,
the data compiled by CNN and separately collected from court officials
could suggest that if people have valid complaints about judges, they
are not using the system or not getting through it.

"It's
very difficult for someone from outside to know what's happening, and
it's not always easy for insiders to know what was happening," US Court
of Appeals Judge Theodore McKee of the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit
told CNN. "The public does have an interest in knowing when there are
complaints that are meritorious."

"Events in recent months have illuminated the depth of the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace," Roberts wrote, "and events in the past few weeks have made clear that the judicial branch is not immune."

The
head of the Judicial Conference's Committee on Judicial Conduct and
Disability, US Appeals Court Judge Anthony Scirica, declined repeated
requests for an interview. James Duff, director of the Administrative
Office of the US Courts, also declined.

CNN
sent a written request to Roberts asking if he would address questions
about the overall system for resolving complaints and whether he had
been aware of problems before the Kozinski matter became public. Roberts
declined the request.

'Worshipful silence'

The
federal judiciary is an independent branch of government, and judges
have long asserted that they can keep their own house in order. Judges
have vigorously fought efforts from Congress to install an inspector
general to oversee potential judicial wrongdoing, based on the
constitutional separation of powers and the view that they can root out
wrongdoers on their own.

Courthouses
are unique ecosystems that can add to the potential for secrecy and
unaddressed misconduct. In their insular world, law clerks and staff may
be intimidated by a judge or otherwise worried about harming their
careers by speaking out.

Lithwick
was referring to law clerks who generally serve for one year and tend
to be among the highly educated elite of a courthouse. But the buildings
are filled with far more employees of lower rank, such as the deputy
court clerk in Waco, who might be even less willing to speak up about
harassment.

A
judge can be forcibly removed from office only through impeachment and
conviction. But that process, which is controlled by the House and
Senate and is the same one used for removing a president, has occurred
only three times in the last 30 years, for issues related to bribery and perjury.

"A
system that relies for investigation solely upon judges themselves
risks a kind of undue 'guild favoritism' through inappropriate sympathy
with the judge's point of view or de-emphasis of the misconduct
problem," the committee wrote.

How CNN crunched the data
by Aaron Kessler

CNN compiled and reviewed nearly 5,000 discipline orders posted on US
appeals court websites, from roughly 2006-2017. There are 13 circuit
courts of appeals, and the circuits vary on how many years' worth of
orders they post and the accessibility of the documents. Some sites
include records back only until September 2015, when federal law
required the on-line posting.
The documents rarely include the name of the judge who was the
subject of the complaint or the specifics of the grievance asserted. The
vast majority of the orders issued were only one or two pages and
comprised of boilerplate procedural language.
Of the 4,823 orders reviewed, more than a third of them -- 1,719 --
were only a single page in length. Another 1,552 were only two pages
long. So more than two-thirds of all orders arising from misconduct
complaints -- 68% -- clocked in at just two pages or less. Of the rest,
26% were between 3-5 pages, and another 6% between 6-9 pages. Less than
1% of the documents examined from the roughly 10 years (39 total)
contained orders that were 10 pages or more in length.
If there were patterns to detect, for example in judges who were
repeat offenders, the system does not make it easy. Many of the
documents are posted as non-searchable, scanned documents -- meaning
that they cannot be searched for names, keywords or any content at all
that a public citizen may seek to find.
To try to assess the complaints and look for patterns, CNN used
software designed to recognize the text images and converted the
documents to searchable versions for analysis.
One indicator of a more serious complaint is referral to a "special
committee." These investigative committees can interview witnesses,
review documents and take other steps to get to the bottom of the facts
of a complaint. Of the nearly 5,000 documents examined, less than 1%
noted the appointment of a special committee.
Because the nature of the potential offense is rarely spelled out, it
is impossible for the public to know if allegations of sexual
misconduct occur with any frequency. After former law clerks publicly
asserted that US Appeals Court Judge Alex Kozinski had sexually harassed
them, CNN searched the orders for any references to "law clerk" and
found that most of those instances involved complaints that a judge had
let a law clerk handle his or her duties.

University of Denver law
professor Nancy Leong, who teaches constitutional law and has focused on
how sex discrimination claims are handled, also cites the insularity as
a problem. She said some judges might balk at taking action against a
colleague knowing that they would be hearing cases together in the
future. "It's all a little bit too close-knit," she said.

"The judiciary is most responsive, and perhaps only responsive, when there's some kind of media attention," Leong said.

Administrative
officials of the US judiciary minimize the importance of a publicly
accessible, easily deciphered disciplinary system. They say the
complaints are overwhelmingly frivolous, the product of litigants
unhappy with a case decision rather than an individual judge's behavior.

Judiciary officials who spoke to
CNN only on condition of anonymity say that when a real offense arises,
the confidential process encourages judges to resign quietly, or
perhaps seek alcoholism treatment or counseling, rather than to escalate
the situation.

The Breyer
committee found that complaints were not handled properly "about 2% to
3%" of the time. But for the 17 cases the committee deemed "high
visibility," those receiving public attention, it found that close to
30% were mishandled -- a rate, the committee said, that is "far too
high." The main problem detected, in high-visibility and other
complaints, was chief judges' failure to conduct "adequate" inquires
before dismissing a complaint or to submit "clear factual discrepancies"
to investigators to pursue.

That
two-year study was requested in 2004 by then-Chief Justice William
Rehnquist, who was trying to head off congressional intervention in
judicial discipline.

Now, more
than a decade later, Roberts has established a working group to examine
the judiciary's procedures for protecting court employees from
misconduct. It is supposed to report back to the chief justice in May.

Breyer declined a request for an interview about the state of the disciplinary system since the 2006 report.

Sen.
Mazie Hirono, concerned about the potential for sexual abuse among
judges, has begun asking judicial nominees, who are subject to the
Senate confirmation process, whether they ever made unwanted requests
for sexual favors or committed verbal or physical harassment. The Hawaii
Democrat is also asking whether they faced discipline or entered into a
settlement related to such conduct.

"I
was really afraid that this would be swept under the rug," Hirono told
CNN, referring to sexual harassment concerns. "It shows that we are
serious about asking these questions, particularly for nominees for
lifetime appointments."

What's public -- and what's not

The
complaint process dates to the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of
1980. "A central purpose of the 1980 Act is to provide transparency,"
Judge Scirica, chairman of the Judicial Conference's conduct committee,
wrote in a 2015 law review article, "so every order resolving a
complaint must be made public, and reprimands may be made public as
well."

But making information public and making it meaningful are not the same.

Many
of the documents are provided to the public as non-searchable, scanned
documents -- meaning that they cannot be searched for names, keywords or
any content at all that a public citizen may seek to find. It is
difficult to detect patterns among judges in various circuits or how
they compare to other circuits.

It's
very difficult for someone from outside to know what's happening, and
it's not always easy for insiders to know what was happening.

US Court of Appeals Judge Theodore McKee

CNN used software designed to recognize the text images and converted the documents to searchable versions for analysis.

It
is exceedingly rare that judicial officials discipline a judge who was
the subject of a complaint, according to the CNN review. Many of the
instances that involved reported sexual misconduct had come to light
from earlier media reports or another outside party.

The
federal judiciary's general statistics that are made public reinforce
that view of scant remedial action. In its public reports going back to
2006, in fact, no censures, reprimands, suspensions or other "remedial
action" occurred in most years (2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2010, 2006). In
the rest, there were no more than three instances of suspension,
reprimand or other remedial action in any given year.

The judiciary's rules dramatically restrict when the name of the judge can be made public.

University
of Pittsburgh law professor Arthur Hellman, who has long studied the
third branch, said it is difficult to assess whether the judiciary has a
sexual harassment problem. "Not from anything that's public," he said.
"How can you know what isn't there?"

What happens to complaints

The
process begins when a complaint is filed in one of the 13 federal
circuit courts. Circuit chief judges dismiss the overwhelming majority
out of hand because they target a court ruling, rather than a judge's
conduct.

Of the rest, the most
common complaint is personal bias against a litigant or attorney (320
complaints in 2016). Other major categories cover conflicts of interest
(144 complaints in 2016) or racial, religious or ethnic bias (128
complaints in 2016), according to figures provided by the courts'
administrative office.

The
courts do not separate out complaints that relate to a judge's conduct
toward an employee. They may be included in a catch-all category for
"other misconduct," for which 354 complaints were filed in 2016.

If
the facts of a complaint are "reasonably in dispute" after an initial
inquiry, the chief judge is required to send the complaint to a special
committee to investigate. That action is rarely taken. Of the nearly
5,000 complaints filed between the 2006 and 2016 fiscal years, 33 went
to a special committee, CNN found.

CNN
found that in several high-profile cases, judges simply resigned while a
complaint was pending. The judiciary's published statistics do not
specifically tally such situations, although they do note when a
complaint was ended because of an "intervening event," which could cover
a resignation. "Intervening events" occurred 16 times in 2016.

In glare of media spotlight

Much
of the known judicial action related to sexual misconduct was taken
because of forces outside the established system, such as media coverage
or complainants using other law enforcement channels.

In
Denver, the 10th Circuit judicial council followed local media when it
began looking into alleged misconduct involving prostitutes by District
Court Judge Edward Nottingham. According to the judicial council's
October 2008 order, the council was following up on numerous
allegations, including whether Nottingham "spent more than $3,000 at a
topless nightclub in one evening [and] that he could not remember how he
had spent that money because he had a lot to drink."

As
an investigation was underway, another misconduct complaint came in
from a woman who said she had been a prostitute and that Nottingham had
been one of her clients.

Events
in recent months have illuminated the depth of the problem of sexual
harassment in the workplace, and events in the past few weeks have made
clear that the judicial branch is not immune.

Chief Justice John Roberts, December 31

The woman, according to the judicial council report,
further alleged that "Nottingham asked her to lie to federal
investigators about the nature of their relationship and not disclose
that she was a prostitute whom he paid in exchange for sex."

As
the investigation was being completed, Nottingham resigned. The 10th
Circuit judicial council, which repeated the salacious allegations in
its report, dismissed the complaint the next day but said his
resignation was "in the interest of justice and the judiciary."

Nottingham did not respond to multiple CNN requests to his law office for comment.

Kozinski was twice brought into the spotlight by the press. The Los Angeles Times in 2008 reported
that as he was presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles,
Kozinski was maintaining "a publicly accessible website featuring
sexually explicit photos and videos."

After he publicly apologized and took the server offline, a judicial council admonished Kozinski
but concluded that he deserved no further discipline. According to the
judges' June 2009 report in the matter, Kozinski "testified that he does
not visit and has no interest in pornographic websites" and that he
"certainly did not send" sexually explicit files to anyone.

9th
US Circuit Appeals Court Judge Alex Kozinski looks on during a House
Judiciary Committee hearing on March 16, 2017, in Washington.

Despite what some former clerks declared was an "open secret" of continuing misbehavior by Kozinski, it was not until a Washington Post story in December 2017
that a new investigation of the Pasadena-based judge was triggered.
That story highlighted an account from a woman who said Kozinski asked
her to look at pornographic images on his office computer. Several other
women subsequently came forward with allegations about misconduct.

Kozinski
resigned shortly thereafter, saying that he "may not have been mindful
enough of the special challenges and pressures that women face in the
workplace."

Nottingham, Kozinski
or any other life-tenured judge who resigns in the middle of a complaint
and is of retirement age is entitled to full pension of roughly
$200,000 annually (the amount differs for district court and appeals
court judges based on their annual salary).

Leave the bench, and all investigations stop

Disciplinary
proceedings are typically halted once the subject of a complaint leaves
the bench. That means that the source of potential bad behavior would
no longer be hearing cases or overseeing employees. But it also means
that the extent of any misconduct -- and whether other people may have
been involved -- goes uncovered by the judiciary. Prosecutors may follow
up, or civil lawsuits against a judge could be filed. Conversely,
without any further action, nothing would prevent the subject of a
complaint from moving on to another job in the law.

Even when cases are resolved, judges are not always willing to release reports of what they found.

In
2013, the judicial council of the 9th Circuit -- headed by then-Chief
Judge Kozinski -- pursued the case of Montana US District Court Judge
Richard Cebull, who had forwarded a racist joke about President Barack
Obama to six acquaintances, according to a story in the Great Falls
Tribune and, later, according to US judicial authorities.

Chief Judge Richard Cebull makes a speech at the federal courthouse in Billings, Montana, on June 23, 2011.

The
Cebull email said in part, "A little boy said to his mother, Mommy, how
come I'm black and you're white? His mother replied, 'Don't even go
there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky
you don't bark!'"

The judicial
panel found that the email and numerous others discovered constituted
misconduct. A later judicial order characterized some emails as
concerning "women and/or sexual topics and were disparaging of women."
Some jokes related to sexual orientation and religion.

As
it finished its report, the 9th Circuit council said no new cases
should be assigned to Cebull for six months and that he should be
trained on judicial ethics and racial awareness. Amid a public uproar
that followed the initial reports of the racist email, Cebull sent Obama
a letter of apology. He resigned soon after the judicial council had
resolved his case but before its report had been made public.

Once
Cebull resigned, in 2013, the council said disciplinary procedures no
longer applied and declined to issue its full report.

US
Court of Appeals Judge McKee of the 3rd Circuit petitioned the Judicial
Conference's Conduct Committee, arguing that the 9th Circuit was
concealing the extent of Cebull's misbehavior and that the full report
should be made public. The committee agreed, and the report is now online.

When outsiders accelerate the process

It has, at times, also taken external legal pressure to fight an outcome seen as too lenient or to jump-start a dormant case.

Perhaps
one of the most serious examples came in Galveston, Texas, after Judge
Samuel Kent repeatedly attacked a woman in his chambers, including
trying to force her to perform oral sex. When the woman filed a formal
complaint in 2007 after years of abuse, a 5th Circuit judicial council
reprimanded Kent, suspended his cases for four months and transferred
him to a courthouse in Houston. The council's 2007 public order did not
reveal the findings by the special investigative committee.

After
that woman and another female courthouse employee told federal law
enforcement authorities of Kent's sexual attacks, Kent in 2008 was
charged with sexual abuse counts and obstruction of justice.

A
system that relies for investigation solely upon judges themselves
risks a kind of undue 'guild favoritism' through inappropriate sympathy
with the judge's point of view or de-emphasis of the misconduct problem

Breyer Committee report, 2006

And how did the case against Judge Smith in Waco begin and end?

The disciplinary complaint started with a disgruntled Texas lawyer.

More
than a decade after the deputy court clerk told supervisors about the
encounter with Smith, lawyer Ty Clevenger tried to bring it to light
after being fined $25,000 by Smith in a separate case.

Clevenger,
who said he heard from a courthouse employee about the 1998 incident in
Smith's chambers, acknowledged to CNN his grievances with Smith and
other judges against whom he has lodged complaints.

"I'm
not going to claim that I'm unbiased," Clevenger said, adding that many
lawyers would not dare challenge a judge for fear of some retaliation.
"I had nothing to lose," he said.

After
receiving Clevenger's complaint in 2014, which included a deposition
from the woman involved, a 5th Circuit judicial council confirmed the
harassment.

"Judge
Smith made inappropriate and unwanted physical and non-physical sexual
advances toward a court employee," the council wrote in December 2015,
adding that, "Judge Smith does not understand the gravity of such
inappropriate behavior."

Smith
had tried to get the complaint dismissed, saying the claim was too old
to be fully investigated, and questioned Clevenger's motives in bringing
it. Rejecting Smith's defenses, the judicial council suspended him from
hearing cases for one year and ordered him to attend "sensitivity
training about appropriate professional interaction." Clevenger said he
thought Smith deserved stronger punishment and appealed to the Judicial
Conference conduct committee.

That
top committee ordered the case reopened, noting that there were names of
people who had allegedly witnessed Smith sexually harassing other
women.

The second investigation was
never fully concluded when Smith retired in September 2016, at age 75.
Through his lawyer, Greg White, he declined a CNN request for comment.

Clevenger had also filed a complaint against Hudspeth,
saying he failed to fulfill his responsibilities by not referring the
deputy clerk's complaint to authorities. Hudspeth told CNN he believed
it was the woman's responsibility to file a formal complaint. Fifth
Circuit judicial officials said in 2016 that they were waiting to pursue
that complaint against Hudspeth until after the situation with Smith
was resolved.

But once Smith resigned, Hudspeth, too, had retired at age 80, so the complaint against him was dismissed.

The
judicial council tasked with investigating allegations of sexual
misconduct against prominent appeals court judge Alex Kozinski announced Feb 5, 2018 it was closing its probe because Kozinski’s retirement
effectively took away its legal authority to explore the matter. (Hahahahaha)

The
judicial council tasked with investigating allegations of sexual
misconduct against former appeals court judge Alex Kozinski announced
Monday that it was closing its probe because his retirement effectively
took away its legal authority to explore the matter.

The four-page order
from the Judicial Council of the Second Circuit was not surprising, as
the panel seemed to have the ability to investigate only sitting judges.
Still, the move probably will disappoint some of those who had leveled
allegations against the powerful jurist and who worried his stepping
down from the bench would short-circuit a full and formal reckoning.

“We
recognize that the complaint references grave allegations of
inappropriate misconduct, which the federal judiciary cannot tolerate,”
the council wrote in its order, before adding, “Because Alex Kozinski
has resigned the office of circuit judge, and can no longer perform any
judicial duties, he does not fall within the scope of persons who can be
investigated under” federal law. A lawyer for Kozinski declined to
comment.

Kozinski,
67, was one of the most well-known appeals court judges in the country.
His colorful opinions on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit
drew national attention, and those who worked for him often went on to
win prestigious Supreme Court clerkships.

The reporting on Kozinski spurred
the judiciary to explore some changes. In late December, Chief Justice
John G. Roberts Jr. announced an initiative to ensure there are proper
procedures in place to protect law clerks and other court
employees from sexual harassment, tasking James C. Duff, the director of
the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, with creating a group to
work on the matter. That group has been formed. The judiciary also
updated the handbook for law clerks to encourage reporting of sexual
harassment.

The
judiciary, though, had repeatedly declined to clarify the status of its
probe into Kozinski. That was frustrating to some of Kozinski’s
accusers, who worried that the judge might one day be able to return to
the legal world in some capacity without having to undergo a full
examination of his misdeeds.“With
his immediate retirement, it appears that he has essentially shut down
the federal judiciary’s investigation of his conduct and deflected
further revelations in the press,” former clerk Katherine Ku wrote last month in a first-person account of her experience with the judge.
“That allows him to disappear, quietly receiving his pension, until the
outrage dies down. It allows him a greater chance at redemption.”
The
judicial council wrote that it had been unable to decide on the merits
of the allegations against Kozinski because he stepped down so early in
the process, before even having submitted a preliminary response to the
allegations against him.

About Me

I am a thoroughly civilized, humane, cosmopolitan, polished, restrained, enjoyable, entertaining Info-maniac. I am a staunch exponent of individual dignity, freedom, equal access to legal services, and equal protection of the law. Here I hope to demonstrate my emotional restraint, humbleness of sentiment, psychological subtlety, lucid style, and simple language, without evading political reality or eternal truth. Daily I am excited that I have the right to create the beginning of a new self and to challenge old habits and attitudes I no longer choose to accept. I choose to relax in the present with my direction firmly in mind. I have an enormous capacity for creative and clever ideas and thoughts. It is phenomenal what I can do. I am capable of so much learning and absorbing a lot of information. My potential is a source of pleasant surprise for me.
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